The Babylon Bee is taking New Mexico to federal court over a state law that requires government-mandated disclaimers on AI-generated political satire, a law the state's own attorney general has called likely unconstitutional.
The conservative Christian satirical website filed a lawsuit and a motion for a preliminary injunction against the New Mexico State Ethics Commission, challenging provisions of HB 182 that force anyone publishing AI-generated political content, including parody and satire, to slap a state-prescribed disclaimer on it. Alliance Defending Freedom, the Bee's longtime legal counsel, filed the suit on Tuesday, arguing the law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The complaint frames the fight in blunt terms: HB 182 has "practically zero constitutional applications," and existing state laws already cover the only speech it could legitimately prohibit, such as defamation or fraud. Requiring a satirist to stamp a government label on every joke doesn't protect voters. It kills the joke.
HB 182, passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature in 2024, defines covered content as any communication "referring to a candidate or ballot question" that uses AI to depict an individual doing something that didn't happen, without that person's consent. Unlike similar laws in Hawaii and California, New Mexico's version is not limited to campaign season, it applies year-round. Willfully distributing such content is a misdemeanor on first conviction and a felony on the second, carrying individual fines of $1,000 and a maximum of $20,000.
Democratic Gov. Michelle Grisham signed it anyway, even after members of the State Ethics Commission warned her the bill had "enforceability" problems.
Then her own attorney general made it worse for the law's defenders. State AG Raul Torrez issued an advisory opinion concluding that the explicit coverage of satire and parody is "likely unconstitutional on its face." That opinion came in July 2025, according to Fox News, more than a year before the Bee filed suit. The Ethics Commission has not disavowed enforcement, and it did not respond to press inquiries about the lawsuit.
So the governor's own ethics commission and her own attorney general both raised red flags. She signed the bill regardless. And the commission has not ruled out using it.
The Bee's complaint makes a straightforward argument about how comedy works. Satire and parody succeed by making audiences "do a double-take by convincing them that they are seeing a serious rendering of an original, and then allowing them to laugh at their own gullibility." A government-mandated label plastered across the content, required "throughout their entire display of the image or video", destroys that mechanism before the audience ever reaches the punchline.
As the complaint puts it: in order to "prompt thought, internal reflection, and public dialogue about the subject of the satire," the content must have "proximity to the real or original." A disclaimer strips that proximity away.
Bee CEO Seth Dillon put it more plainly:
"We're used to getting pulled over by the joke police, but comedy isn't a crime."
Dillon argued the First Amendment protects "AI satire poking fun at political candidates." Jim Campbell, ADF's chief legal counsel, told the Washington Examiner that "the government cannot decide which political speech is allowed and which is forbidden."
One of the sharpest points in the Bee's filing is about who the law protects and who it punishes. HB 182 contains five exceptions to its disclaimer requirement. One exempts "a communication appearing in a news story or editorial." Radio and TV broadcasters who include AI-generated material in "bona fide" news and interviews need only include one disclaimer "at most" noting the content is artificially generated.
The Bee and other satirists get no such break. They must display the disclaimer "throughout their entire display of the image or video." The complaint notes the law leaves out the exact setting where "AI-generated 'materially deceptive media' would do the most harm", "trusted, conventional news sources", while targeting the outlets whose whole business model depends on audiences recognizing the content as satire.
The law also reaches beyond creators. It applies to users who share AI-generated political content, including social media reposts. The Bee's content routinely generates thousands of reposts. The complaint argues the law's "passive voice" suggests third parties could be held liable for sharing someone else's satirical post. And the statute does not clarify whether "public distribution" includes text messaging, email, direct messaging, or paid subscriber-only content.
That vagueness, the Bee argues, is the point. The challenged provisions are "unconstitutionally vague," failing to give the Bee "adequate notice" of what speech is prohibited and letting the commission "engage in discriminatory enforcement."
New Mexico is not the first state to try this. Hawaii and California both passed similar laws targeting AI-generated political content, and federal courts invalidated both on First Amendment grounds. Hawaii ended up paying more than $118,000 in attorneys' fees after losing its case. Alliance Defending Freedom represented the challengers in both of those victories.
Minnesota's version survived, but barely. A three-judge panel found an unwritten parody exception in the Minnesota statute and ruled that satirist Chris Kohls, known online as "Mr. Reagan," was protected under it. The full 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to review that decision. In that same case, Minnesota AG Keith Ellison submitted an expert declaration that was found to contain AI "hallucinations."
The Bee's motion cites the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the controlling appellate court for New Mexico, as having set a high bar for punishing false speech. The 10th Circuit previously struck down a Kansas law that prevented animal rights activists from using deception to gain access to ranches, ruling that false speech must "imminently" cause a "legally cognizable harm," such as property damage, before the government can punish it. The Bee argues HB 182 is "too attenuated from the false speech" to satisfy that standard.
The complaint also invokes the Supreme Court's landmark ruling tossing televangelist Jerry Falwell's lawsuit against Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. Hustler had run a liquor-ad parody depicting Falwell recounting intoxicated incest with his mother. The Court held that even offensive, outrageous parody of a public figure is protected speech. AI-generated satirical content, the Bee argues, is the modern equivalent, political cartoons that "achieve their point by exaggerating reality."
The Bee says speed matters. Its complaint notes that "satire and parody, by their nature, require swift reaction to current events." With New Mexico's November election approaching, the law threatens the Bee for responding to as-yet unknown "opportunities for effective satire or parody." Every day the law stands, the Bee contends, is a day its writers face criminal liability for doing what satirists have always done.
The stakes extend beyond fines. The Bee argues that violating New Mexico law could trigger social media sanctions, risking the loss of millions of followers and the advertising revenue those followers represent. The site has a history of deplatforming, Twitter suspended the Bee's account for eight months before Elon Musk bought the platform and reinstated it.
Among the content at issue: the Bee produced an AI-generated "Visit New Mexico" promo featuring a depiction of New Mexico Supreme Court Justice David Thomson, who is running for reelection, declaring the elimination of "the Second Amendment, the First Amendment, or any other amendment that lets people do things." The law's definition of "advertisement" requires no "commercial transaction," which the Bee's complaint calls nonsensical. Under that definition, a satirical video mocking a sitting justice's judicial philosophy could qualify as a regulated advertisement.
The Ethics Commission has not said whether that specific video prompted any enforcement consideration. It has not responded publicly to the lawsuit at all.
When a state's own attorney general says a law is likely unconstitutional, and the governor signs it anyway, the question stops being about AI disclaimers, it's about whether the government gets to decide which jokes are legal.
